Money Matters
als1982
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
May/June monthly check-in
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?
HeartlandHustle | Personal Finance and Betterment Blog
Re: May/June monthly check-in
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
We saved $1,000, kept everything in budget for the month, and we hit over $150K for retirement.
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Get all of DH's checking account stuff moved to our new joint account and close out his. After almost 10 years of marriage, 2 kids, and a house, we finally decided to merge our checking accounts... not sure why we waited this long! It'll make bill paying a lot easier.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Short: Cash flow the upstairs bathroom gut this summer. Should be good for that- demo starts 6/27!
Middle: Up girls' 529 contributions for 2017, get through the last 12 payments of day care, maybe start paying off the house quicker. There are some more home repairs too- new garage door, new front door, new trex porch, and replace the siding. Every summer, we'll re-evaluate what our school district is doing and decide if we should start house hunting or look into private schools.
Long: Retirement contributions up 1% per year, fully fund Roths each year.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?
Summer is busy- DH is always working on house things, it's DD#1's birthday, my birthday, and our 10th anniversary all in 1 week in August. I also take off Fridays in the summer and we go on little day trips with the girls- lots of fun!
For awhile, my goals have been to get new tenants in the duplex I fixed up. I have tenants in one side and still have the other side vacant. But I do have someone who seemed pretty interested. We'll see.
A twist in my plans happened less than a couple weeks ago. My tenants on the other side of my personal duplex decided to break their lease and move out. Ugh! They just moved in 3 months ago! Long story short, a family emergency...they need to save money and move back in with parents...yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm super irritated. But at least their deposit covers June's rent and they are pretty much already out of the house and there are no damages. I already have another tenant lined up to move-in July 1st. Or at least I should. They aren't local and said they put their check in the mail today for the deposit. Receiving that and the signed lease is the trigger (for me) to take it off the market.
My other short term goal was to get under contract for another rental property. I've put in some offers, including one that is still hanging out there, but so far no takers. My long term goal is to be at $5K/month cash flow with rentals (not including my personal home duplex). So far I'm at around $1500. If my offer hanging out there comes to fruition, it will add another $1,000 and get me halfway! (Crossing fingers). But I already know there is competition and they are playing the "submit your best offer" game.
Motivation:
I don't find it too hard to stay motivated because I'm a pretty simple gal and have always kept my bills to a minimum. I also don't watch and analyze every penny. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not my style and would make me unhappy. I analyze big purchases, but allow myself to spend what I want on more "every day" stuff like going out to lunch, groceries, and general items.
Seasonal:
Summer is my least favorite time of year. It gets crazy hot, humid, and miserable here in the South. I try to avoid the outside and unnecessary errands as much as possible. Today (June 1st) is also the start of hurricane season. So I bulk up my e-fund, just in case of evacuation. Or power being down for long periods of time and my world becomes a cash-only society.
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Pay off H's student loan. Yes we did! It wasn't even really on our radar since the interest rate was low. But with the market being soft and my getting a large bonus at work we decided to just knock it out. We also hired a cleaning lady (a friend). Fingers crossed that it works out.
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
We need to set a new monthly budget and start rebuilding savings. We took some money from savings for the SL payoff.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Our main goal is to keep saving for retirement so we can retire early. We have been using side hustles to help increase savings/free up more money and now that the SL is gone we will be able to have retirement and mortgage as our main focus.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
I'm like @short+sassy. I like to keep things simple. Not spending a lot overall provides money each month to go to retirement savings. Being able to put something away each month is motivating.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?
I get half day Fridays at work and the extra time makes me feel so much more relaxed and happy during the weekends.
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Pay off our car loan and we did it!
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
June is to reevaluate our savings and investing plans to make sure we're maximizing our potential earnings, but also keeping enough liquid cash. Right now I'm just automatically dumping all of it into a savings account while I figure out what percentage of that I want to redirect to the investment account. In July I'll finally be eligible for my work 401(k) so I'll start researching which funds I want for that new account.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
We have various house projects that are on the horizon and we're doing our first round of IUI this month so we're just saving like crazy and trying to knock out the house projects as cheaply as possible with enough leftover to have a good cushion for maternity leave (part of it will be paid but I want the option to extend it if I decide I want to and not have to worry about money). Automatic transfers are where it's at for all of these goals!
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
It's pretty easy for me - I want these goals more than I want other stuff. I hate stuff, I'm actively selling half of the stuff in our house. I just don't know what else I would spend money on that I'd enjoy more than the goals we've set.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?
We have a few beach trips to the Cape planned that I'm looking forward to. Other than that this summer is dedicated to sprucing up the house/yard, relaxing, and more attempts at baby-making.
May
Our goals were to cash flow some minor home renovations and yard projects. We were able to stay in budget and sent a little extra to savings.
June
Heading to Italy at the end of this month (!) so our goal is to cash flow as much of that as possible. We have plenty in our vacation fund, but anything we don't use we can roll forward to our next vacation!
Status of Ongoing Goals
Short-term: Finishing up a bunch of random $100-$500 projects around the house. Cash flowing as much of these as possible. H's car will also be paid off in September. It's on autopay so not really a goal, but it will be nice to be done with that.
Mid-term: Get ready to TTC at the end of the year. Continue hitting our hours so we make bonus and get raises going into next year. Save for a baby fund.
Long-term: Set ourselves up to retire early.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
We try to identify what we really care about and what we "want" just because it helps us keep up with the Joneses. Once we sort that out, then we scrimp on the things that are in the keep up with the Joneses category. But we are pretty unapologetic about spending the money on the things we really care about. Example: we scrimp on clothes so that we can afford to travel. Clothing doesn't make me happy. Travel does. It becomes an easy choice once you figure out what actually makes you happy.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
Summer is when our summer associates are in town. That results in a lot of events involving a lot of alcohol and food. It's also when we have to really pay attention to our reimburseable expenses because we end up carrying a lot on our cards for these events.
We also tend to have a lot of travel for work during the summer months. This summer H is going to the beach with their summer associates. He also has a practice group retreat in August. I am taking a trip to Mississippi in July and Washington DC in September for business.
And Italy. I'm stoked about Italy
This has been a 180 degree change for me from when I was younger. I used to buy stuff all the time...because I liked it and didn't think about it or because I "sort of" liked it and it was 90% off!! Well, 90% off for something one doesn't use is 10% paying for something unneeded, lol.
Now I'm stuck with a house full of clothes, knick knacks, and stuff that I largely don't use. And that is after giving away boxes and bags of things over the years. Some with their price tags still on them (sigh).
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Our goals were to pay for our sidewalk,mulch, plants and flowers. We also wanted to open up ROTH IRA's, and keep adding to our vacation and savings account. We completed everything except we didn't save any extra money for our accounts which is ok. Phew! But we also just paid for our relatives wedding weekend hotels for September and put down $400 towards our Sandals trip next May. Going to Antigua for our 5 year wedding/10 year being together anniversary!
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
We have a lot to pay off this month. We have $ set aside for the mulch and flowers and just need to pay the bill when it comes this month. We also just racked up $650 in vet bills will my dogs knee injury. We bought bikes on sale last month and will need to pay for those. We have our 2 storm doors being installed this month but we 0% financed them at Home Depot so we will pay that off a little at a time now that all these big things just came up. Also, when the sidewalk guys were using the bobcat over our driveway they crumbled the already crumbling end of our driveway, so now we are in the process of having that graveled and re-paved by the end of June or so, so now we are out another $3400 with that. Thank goodness for an e-fund as we weren't planning to have it done yet, but luckily oil prices are still low so it's best to do it now before the winter. When it rains, it pours. I'm glad we got the bikes for some free fun this month! We will be very stingy with money and luckily H has holiday pay and some OT so that will help.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Right now we are just focusing on the above projects, I can't think about anything else right now.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
The money keeps me motivated, I don't want to ever end up broke or racking up credit card debt that we can't pay off
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?
Well no anniversary trip this year because of house projects, but normally we just enjoy a summer with some fun outdoor activities
May
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
June
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you keep motivated to achieve your financial goals?
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. Any special summer plans or things you do traditionally during this time of year?